Jessica Lange: Some of us play witches. Some play historical characters. I do play a witch. You know, we move back and forth in time, so it encompasses a lot of different stories.

Zap2it: Last time,
"American Horror Story: Asylum" offered a very clear example of how much your character could shift in one season. Did that spoil you for future seasons?

Jessica Lange: Well, with that character ... I mean, you know, the thing that was really interesting to me when it was first kind of presented was exactly that, that you have these extreme shifts in character.

You know, you've got a drunken nun with a sordid past who gets incarcerated and goes mad and then finds some kind of redemption in the last moment through these children. So it was this kind of wonderful opportunity -- for me, at least -- to play all the things that I like as an actor, the kind of big sweeps of emotion.

Zap2it: In that character, did you find echoes of your Oscar-nominated performance as actress Frances Farmer in
"Frances"?

Jessica Lange: I love madness. I do. I love playing that, so in the last season, I really felt that I was given this kind of plum ... this juicy piece of possibility that I could play all the things that really interest me, and to just go out there and be as kind of wild with it as I wanted to be.